The present invention relates to vehicle seat covers, and to vehicle seats including such covers.
More particularly, the invention relates to a flexible cover for covering flexible padding belonging to a vehicle seat, the cover having an inside face for facing the padding and an outside face designed to be visible to a user of the seat, said cover presenting a certain thickness between its inside and outside faces, and having at least one electrically conductive thread fixed to its inside face.
Document EP-A-0 347 969 describes an example of such a seat cover in which the conductive thread is an electric heater wire which is heat-sealed under the cover. That type of conductive thread fixing presents the advantage of being invisible from outside the seat. However the process whereby the conductive thread is assembled under the cover is complex and requires tooling that is expensive.
A particular object of the present invention is to mitigate that drawback without losing the advantage of the invisible character of the way in which the conductive thread is fixed under the cover.
To this end, according to the invention, in a cover of the kind in question, the conductive thread is sewn to the inside face of the cover and forms a non-through seam that is not visible from the outside face of the cover, the conductive thread including portions which penetrate into the thickness of the cover and portions which are placed against the inside face of said cover.
By means of these dispositions, assembly of the conductive thread against the inside face of the cover requires no tooling other than conventional sewing tooling which is easy to use and inexpensive.
Advantageously, the seam comprises a single conductive thread sewn using a chain stitch.
The invention also provides a vehicle seat comprising flexible padding covered by a cover as defined above, with the inside face of the cover being placed against the flexible padding.